Carr vs. Holmes: High-profile rumble for low-profile office

The office is so little known that Seattle City Attorney Tom Carr ran unopposed for reelection four years ago, and George Bush, Sr., was in the White House the last time an incumbent was given a run for his money.

No more.

The battle between Carr and challenger Pete Holmes, former chair of the Police Oversight Board, is getting down, dirty and cutting – a high-profile rumble for a low-profile job.

“It has been incredibly personal at times on the trail,” said Holmes, as the two candidates duked it out Wednesday on Capitol Hill before the editorial board of The Stranger.

In its pages and on its Web site, The Stranger has criticized Carr’s handling of his office, so much that Carr will no longer return calls from reporter Dominic Holden. On Tuesday, replying to a tough query from Stranger scribe Eli Sanders, Carr retorted: “Eli, you sound like a bad lawyer.”

The race has an array of issues: Was Carr overly aggressive and maladroit in Operation Sobering Thought, when police sent young women with false IDs into Pioneer Square nightclubs? Has the city attorney’s office been too zealous in asking jail time for petty crime?

Is Holmes, a sharp and tenacious critic of the police departments ability to investigate misconduct among “Seattle’s finest,” ready to run the city’s legal office?

Citing the messy aftermath of Operation Sobering Thought, and the absence of prosecutions, Holmes shot back: “In the private sector, you would get fired for the results in the city attorney’s office the last eight years.”

Carr is a native of the Bronx, and a 33-year resident of New York City before moving to Seattle in 1991. He is combative. He fought all the way to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals defending the right of the Seattle Center to limit where a balloon man got to ply his trade. (The Center eventually lost.)

Carr, seeking a third term, shows the upset of a longtime incumbent in an unexpectedly close race. And he demonstrates a healthy dose of hubris.

He ticks off programs such as Community Courts, and the lowering of jail populations, and told editors at The Stranger that “it takes skill and experience, which I have and Pete doesn’t.”

Holmes argued, citing his conversations with city prosecutors, that Carr is “gumming up, micromanaging and insisting on harsh punishment.”

The challenger has been a lawyer for 25 years, and worked at Miller Nash before immersing himself in the oversight board for the past six years. “A single case that I handled had a higher budget than Mr. Carr’s office,” he said on Wednesday.

A much-discussed issue is the decision by Carr’s office to seek jail time for a repeat offender who stole a can of tuna.

Starting to question Carr, Eli Sanders referred to “the $1.50 can of tuna.”

“It’s $1.72, Eli,” Carr shot back, showing intimate knowledge of a case he treated as mythology just a few days ago.

Carr argued that the tuna heist “was his 50th misdemeanor conviction – five-oh,” and that the man had six felony and 15 misdemeanor convictions outside of Seattle. “He got the treatment he needed,” argued the city attorney.

“I would not have gone to jail time: It was not working,” Holmes replied. The challenger argued that city prosecutors should be given more latitude to “find the better solutions for these non-violent offenses.”

Tom Carr and Dominic Holden served five years together on the city’s Marijuana Policy Committee. Holden is a former director of Hempfest. The panel was formed after Seattle voters passed Initiative 75, which says police should give lowest priority to prosecution of marijuana posssession.

Carr said that city prosecutors have filed possession charges in 54 cases through June.

“In each one of those cases (the defendants) were booked for something else,” he said. “Fifty-four marijuana cases is not stringent enforcement of marijuana possession. My principal concern is open-air drug markets. Marijuana is not usually sold in open-air drug markets.”

Holmes’ response was blunt. “I will not charge another simple marijuana case. Period!”

Holmes emphasizes one point on the stump. Seattle elects its city attorney, he notes. The city’s legal department answers to Emerald City voters and is not just government’s advocate — especially when government wants to keep secrets.

“The notion that the city attorney is elected, not appointed, is the key element here,” he said.

Carr was on hostile turf at The Stranger. Holmes has faced the Seattle Police Officers Guild, an outfit where he has few friends.

A momentary thaw ended Wednesday’s encounter.

The Stranger reimbursed Tom Carr for $9 in cab fare: The city attorney was running late and had to take a taxi up to Capitol Hill. “Maybe I’ll start calling Dominic back,” Carr joked.